Machiavelli: monster or mastermind?

Controversy and sensationalism have followed Machiavelli from
his day to ours. His approach to the art of government,
treating politics as a subject beyond the constraints of
conventional morality, has caused his name (unjustly) to
become synonymous with unprincipled methods of wielding
power.

Machiavelli wrote his two major treatises, The
Prince and the Discourses, in an attempt to
gain favour by a demonstration of political experience and
know-how. In The Prince, Machiavelli sets out "to
represent things as they are in real truth, rather than as
they are imagined".

Machiavelli made a sharp break with traditional literature of
the "Mirror of
Princes*," which dealt with moral rather than
practical issues; he is accordingly considered a forerunner
of modern political theory.

Yet, rather than supporting the indiscriminate cruelty and
deceit of rulers, Machiavelli viewed political stability as a
ruler's foremost consideration, believing that with this end
in mind a prince must be capable of being cruel, deceitful,
generous or honest as need requires. (See the quotations,
both from Shakespeare and Machiavelli, on
the next
page.)

That strumpet Fortune

Machiavelli gives a fine example of the Renaissance habit of
thought by symbol, or icon, as well as offering an
uncomfortable insight into attitudes towards women:

As fortune is changeable whereas men are obstinate in their
ways, men prosper so long as fortune and policy are in
accord, and when there is a clash they fail. I hold
strongly to this: that it is better to be impetuous than
circumspect; because fortune is a woman and if she is to be
submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her. . . .
Always, being a woman, she favours young men, because they
are less circumspect and more ardent, and because they
command her with great audacity.
(From The Prince. 1961. Trans. George Bull.
Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1986. See pp. 35, 90,
135.)